


“I can’t breathe!”

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: Denmark Street musings [18]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pining, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 09:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21013577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: I found this in my drafts folder, unfinished, marked as being a gift for Lindmea, for the prompt “I can’t breathe!” with a note that it was to contain angst. It was written, and is set, between Career of Evil and Lethal White. Decided to finish it off and post. Sorry it’s over a year late, Lindmea!





	“I can’t breathe!”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pools_of_venetianblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pools_of_venetianblue/gifts).

> I found this in my drafts folder, unfinished, marked as being a gift for Lindmea, for the prompt “I can’t breathe!” with a note that it was to contain angst. It was written, and is set, between Career of Evil and Lethal White. Decided to finish it off and post. Sorry it’s over a year late, Lindmea!

Blackness pressed in around the edges of Robin’s vision. The air fluttering in and out of her lungs felt as though it contained no oxygen. Her heart thumped against her ribcage. Cold sweat prickled across her face. She could barely hear Strike on the edge of her consciousness asking her in an urgent voice if she was all right. She felt him steer her through a doorway, saw a chair approach down the tunnel she was suddenly viewing the world through, was dimly aware of being gently turned to sit on it.

“I can’t breathe,” she managed to gasp. A glass of water appeared on the table in front of her. She stared at it, unable to work out what to do with it. The sweat that had broken out across her face and between her shoulder blades was suddenly icy cold.

“Robin!” Strike’s deep voice anchored her. His face appeared in her line of sight, familiar, safe, instructing her to breathe with him, in and out, slowly. Gradually the darkness receded and she saw that they were sat in a small cafe. She felt the blood return to her face, realised she was shaking violently.

“Shock,” Strike diagnosed. “Drink some water, breathe for a minute.” He focused all his attention on Robin, trying to drown out the murderous rage building up within him at her idiot husband.

With the immediate danger of fainting past, Robin was hit afresh by the clarity of the image that she knew she’d never be able to erase from her mind. Handsome Matthew - her Matthew - with his arm around Sarah, ahead of them on the pavement. Laughing together. The sunlight glinting off his wedding ring as his hand rested on her shoulder. The ring that represented what was left of Robin’s marriage, that was still so shiny and new, barely a few months of being worn failing to give it any patina at all.

She wondered vaguely, in an abstract way, if they had ever stopped seeing each other. She was interested to note with a feeling almost of detachment that there was no pain yet, only shock. Perhaps that would come later, she thought.

Strike watched her as her colour slowly returned to normal. He was no stranger to the pain of betrayal. Charlotte had put him though it many times. But he couldn’t bear the thought of Robin - sweet-natured, kind Robin - having to endure that torture again at the hands of the same stupid man and presumably the same woman, although Strike had never met Sarah Shadlock. He was filled with a rage it was not his place to express, a protectiveness she had no use for and he could never reveal to her. He was powerless to help.

“Are...are you okay?” he asked hesitantly. She met his gaze for a moment and looked away again. “I don’t know,” she answered, honestly. She had literally no idea what to do. Go on tailing Redhead, get back to work, pretend nothing had happened? _And then what? _she asked herself. Go home tonight and carry on pretending? Confront Matthew?

A sudden urge to leave swept over her. She could just get on a train to Masham. An image of her mother floated into her mind and tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away angrily. _You’re a grown-up now, _she told herself. _You made your bed, and you have to lie in it. You can’t go running home to your mum._

The tears and her battle with them broke Strike’s battered heart afresh. He longed to wrap her in his arms, to protect her from the world. To find Matthew and knock some sense into him, to rage at him for being so utterly callous as to hold this incredible woman’s heart in his hands and treat it with so little regard. Instead he sat and looked out of the window and pretended not to notice as Robin surreptitiously wiped her eyes.

Robin cast a glance at Strike’s profile. He was still her best friend in London, the person in whom she had confided the most. But she hadn’t confided this. She hadn’t told him about the rows that hadn’t stopped with her wedding as she’d hoped. Hadn’t told him about Matthew’s endless, continuing jealousy and hatred of Strike. Hadn’t told him she was practically permanently sleeping on the sofa now. He presumably thought her happily married, and she had never disabused him of the notion.

But she had tried, with Matthew. Tried and tried to stay true to herself and also hold her marriage together. Tried to ignore the increasing enjoyment she found in her partner’s company, the way his battered, sullen features had somehow rearranged themselves into attractiveness, the way his large frame had become familiar and a little thrilling rather than intimidating over the months.

She shook her head. Those thoughts were useless to her in this moment. She had to decide what to do about Matthew.

She sighed, and Strike glanced back at her from his concentrated study of the crowds on the street outside. The waitress appeared with a pot of tea and two mugs and set them down between them.

She also had to remember that she was still, technically, at work. Robin cleared her throat. “We’ll have lost Redhead by now.”

Strike shrugged. “We know where she was almost certainly going. We can pick her up again in a bit. Robin—” He stopped. It was none of his business, really. He wasn’t even sure how to broach the subject.

Robin straightened up. She had allowed her personal life to intrude, to stop them pursuing a case. She needed to get her professionalism reestablished. “I can check the cafe where she usually goes, and maybe you should swing by her house,” she said, forcing her voice to sound normal. She picked up the teapot and began to pour the tea into their mugs.

Strike suppressed a sigh and gazed out of the window again. This was his fault, he supposed. He had always been so careful to hold her at arms’ length, to keep carefully hidden the growing affection for her that he had fought so hard to conquer. Clearly he had done too good a job, and she now felt unable to confide in him.

He was ignoring the tiny flicker of hope that had taken root in his heart, deeming it totally unnecessary and inappropriate. She was not his to long for, not in any way. But surely, surely, now her marriage would be over? To forgive an indiscretion was one thing, but to forgive him the same indiscretion again, and so soon after their wedding? Robin was made of sterner stuff than that, he was sure.

She had forgiven Matthew before, though. And how many times had he forgiven Charlotte?

He had to offer something, at least. Some kind of help.

“Nick and Ilsa have a spare room,” he heard himself say. “If you wanted—” He forced himself to stop again. It wasn’t up to him to tell her what to do.

Touched, Robin felt fresh tears prickle in her eyes. She swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in her throat. She couldn’t allow the boundaries to blur. Now more than ever, she was going to need this job. She realised with a sudden flutter of panic that even if Matthew left their flat, she couldn’t afford to stay in it alone.

She’d have to think about the practicalities later. But what she couldn’t do was stay with Strike’s friends. She had to sort this out herself, and keep her position in the business purely on a professional footing.

“That won’t be necessary, thank you.” Her efforts to control her wobbling voice made her sound robotic, flat. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter still.

Strike glanced at her, at her pale cheeks and the set of her jaw. She’d clearly reached a decision, a decision that didn’t involve leaving her husband and taking refuge with his friends.

Anger surged again, this time at Robin herself. How could she allow him to continue to treat her like this? How could she not just walk away? What kind of hold did that smarmy young accountant have over her?

“Fine,” he heard himself say, just as clipped and flat. He picked up his mug. “I’m going out for a smoke.”

Robin nodded. Strike marched out of the cafe, and she sat and stared out of the window, unseeing.


End file.
